Kelly: The enduring wound of cop-killer Joanne Chesimard

Several months ago, one of my contacts in North Jersey’s Cuban community called. He wanted to know if I was interested in traveling with him to Cuba to capture Joanne Chesimard, the convicted killer of a New Jersey state trooper who has been hiding in the Caribbean nation since breaking out of a New Jersey prison in the late 1970s.

I said no.

The plan, I sensed, was more pipe dream than reality. With a $2 million bounty for her arrest and a spot on the FBI’s most wanted list of terrorists, Chesimard has long been a tempting carrot that might cause some people to take chances they shouldn’t take, especially in Cuba where mistakes can get you tossed in jail.

But this plot – if we can call it that – reveals how Chesimard still holds a near-mythic status in America.

She is, to some degree, a New Jersey version of what Osama bin Laden was to the nation until he was killed by a team of U.S. Navy SEALs. She is notorious, mysterious and, for now, seemingly out of reach in a foreign nation from American law.

This reward poster provided by the New Jersey State Police, announces the federal reward of $1 million for the capture of convicted cop killer Joanne Chesimard in West Trenton, N.J., May 2, 2005. Chesimard, who now calls herself Assata Shakur, was convicted of the murder of Trooper Werner Foerster but escaped from prison in 1979 and has been living in Cuba under the protection of Fidel Castro's government. Brooklyn Councilman Charles Barron on Tuesday, May 24, 2005, is calling on the United States to rescind the $1 million bounty for Chesimard, describing her as an innocent victim of racial bias.(Photo: AP Photo/New Jersey State Police)

She is also the central character in two American narratives – a brutal killer to some who shot a state trooper in the head, execution-style, and a victim - heroine to others who say she was wrongly framed for that murder. These opposite narratives even correspond to the two names that identify Chesimard now.

As the convicted killer of N.J. State Trooper Werner Foerster, she is Joanne Chesimard, a key operative for the Black Liberation Army terrorist group in the early 1970s that has been linked to numerous terrorist-like crimes and called for a violent revolution in America. To remnants of the black nationalist movement and their newly minted millennial followers, she is Assata Shakur, smiling in photographs taken in Havana where she has lived for four decades after being granted political asylum by Fidel Castro who praised what he called her revolutionary acts against racist America.

Those two narratives are now colliding in the oddest of places – on a T-shirt.

In September 2016, a N.J. State Trooper, Nyron Harris, posted an Instagram photo of a T-shirt that featured nine photos of African-American women under the title, “Black Excellence.” Harris, who is African-American, later explained that the T-shirts were being marketed by his cousin and he just wanted to help promote them.

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Harris also said he did not bother to check out who was depicted in those nine photos. If he had, he might have noticed the portraits of some prominent women, including poet and actress Maya Angelou, Civil War-ear abolitionist Harriet Tubman and civil-rights activist Rosa Parks. In the bottom, right corner of the T-shirt, he might have also noticed a far more notorious woman, too – Chesimard.

State Trooper Werner Foerster, who was killed by Joanne Chesimard in 1973. Chesimard was convicted of the murder but escaped to Cuba and was granted political asylum after three gunmen helped her escape from prison.(Photo: New Jersey State Police)

How Chesimard was included in this group is part of that divided narrative. While many think of her as nothing more than a fugitive killer, another group considers her worthy of praise – on par with far more accomplished African-Americans. Worthy even of a spot on a T-shirt promoting “black excellence.”

Harris, 34, graduated in 2013 from the State Police Academy. After four years on the force, he was due to appear before a reenlistment board in 2017, but was told he had been fired. In December, he filed a lawsuit in state Superior Court in Trenton claiming that his Instagram photo of the T-shirt and a sudden upsurge of criticism of him by fellow troopers was the real reason for his dismissal.

But in his lawsuit, Harris also makes a curious claim. He not only says he did not know who Chesimard was but “was born after Joanne Chesimard became known to the world.”

If nothing else, Harris is supremely naïve. How could a N.J. State Trooper post an Instagram photo of the most notorious fugitive in New Jersey history and then claim he didn’t know who she was? Wasn’t he somewhat curious to find out who was pictured on his cousin’s T-shirt? Wasn't he paying attention when his trooper colleagues – even today – would continually speak about the need to extradite Chesimard from Cuba?

Mike Kelly(Photo: NorthJersey.com)

OK, we all make dumb mistakes. But this was a whopper, especially given its timing.

In 2016, when Harris’ Instagram post caught the attention of fellow troopers who complained to their superiors, the nation was actively debating the often-contentious relationship between African-Americans and police.

To many troopers, Chesimard was every cop’s nightmare. A car carrying her and two other Black Liberation Army accomplices was stopped at night by two troopers on the New Jersey Turnpike. Almost immediately Chesimard and her friends started shooting, wounding one trooper and killing another before speeding off. Even among the youngest troopers now, Chesimard remains an open wound that can only be healed with her extradition from Cuba and imprisonment back in New Jersey.

In this April 25, 1977 file photo, Joanne Chesimard, a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, leaves Middlesex County courthouse in New Brunswick, N.J. Now known as Assata Shakur, she was convicted in 1977 of killing a New Jersey state trooper four years earlier, in a case that drew international attention. She was sentenced to life in prison but escaped. She wound up in Cuba in the 1980s and like other fugitives with political asylum here, once was living so openly in Havana that her number was listed in the phone book.(Photo: AP file photo)

Photos taken on that night in 1973 when Chesimard and another BLA operative shot and killed an already wounded Trooper Foerster at close range with his own gun are still shown to classes at the State Police Academy. I’ve seen those photos. They’re a gruesome reminder of why Chesimard still stokes so much anger among cops.

That anger is authentic and should not be dismissed amid the larger discussion over cops and race that is now taking place.

This week, Sen. Bob Menendez, the Paramus Democrat who was just cleared of federal corruption charges, teamed up with a Republican colleague on the Senate Foreign Relations committee, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, to introduce a bi-partisan resolution that calls on Cuba to return “all fugitives from justice who are receiving safe harbor in Cuba,” notably Chesimard and Guillermo “Willie” Morales, the chief bomb maker for the Puerto Rican nationalist terror group known as FALN.

Morales is believed to have designed the terrorist bomb that blew apart Manhattan’s Fraunces Tavern in 1975, killing Frank Connor, 33, a bank executive from Fair Lawn, and three others. Along with Chesimard, Morales is among an estimated 70 other U.S. fugitives who fled to Cuba.

Unlike Chesimard, Morales lives openly in Havana. This columnist confronted him at his apartment in 2015. Chesimard no longer lives at a home she had occupied for years. Friends say she has gone into hiding.

The senate resolution by Menendez and Rubio will likely pass easily – perhaps with no opposition. Far less certain is whether this resolution will have any impact whatsoever in prompting Cuban authorities to return Chesimard or any other fugitive.

Joanne Chesimard, center who was indicted in the May 2nd slaying of state trooper Werner Foerster in a shootout on the NJ Turnpike, is transferred to Middlesex County jail from the county workhouse in North Brunswick in 1973.(Photo: AP file photo)

When President Barack Obama announced in December 2014 that the United States and Cuba planned to re-establish diplomatic relations after more than half-a-century of antagonism, he did not mention whether the extradition of Chesimard or the other fugitives would be part of the deal. Obama’s aides say they pushed Cuban officials behind the scenes to return Chesimard and other fugitives. But their efforts were fruitless.

President Donald Trump set a far different tone – at least, initially. Last June, in a speech in Miami, Trump mentioned Chesimard by name and called on Cuba to return her. Then, in November, Trump announced he was “canceling the last administration’s completely one-sided deal with Cuba” and imposed new travel and economic restrictions on Cuba.

But what about Chesimard?

She is believed to be still residing in Cuba. Back here, in America, we still live with the dueling narratives of her life – the fugitive from justice versus the so-called heroine who managed to somehow be included on a T-shirt with prominent African American women.

And, here in New Jersey, we also live with another reality. Joanne Chesimard is an open wound.